gatov-west

Charles was part of Liminal, a collaborative show including a dozen or so artists. His two pieces, “Treecloud” and “North,” show colorful landscapes composed of clouds. This first piece, “Treecloud,” immediately caught my attention from across the room. The full spectrum of color jumped out from the plain, white wall. The grayish column of clouds in the center of the painting looked to me like smoke rising from a fire.

Showing space and perspective through the development of back-, middle- and fore- grounds that will merge with as well as pull away from one another.

In this piece, titled “North,” the clouds extend from earth to sky. The lower clouds in the foreground seem to form vegetation that extends back towards the darker clouds in the middle ground.

These pieces were very interesting as they incorporated clouds in a way that I have never seen before. Typically, clouds are distant and far-off, used to create a greater sense of depth. In Banowetz’s paintings, these clouds

The pattern was based on the song “Wait” by M83. The pedals of the loom were moved to correspond to the notes from the song. Hidden in the piece were three speakers. These each played a different song. These songs corresponded to three different ideas. The first was about the interaction between religion and politics. The second focused on the stages of love: falling in love, not loosing oneself while learning about the other, and finally either staying in love or breaking up. The last idea was the song “Under.”

To transport this piece, Ertl balls it up into a bag. Because of this, the piece is different every time it is on display. Its shape and arrangement always changes to fit the architecture in the space which it is installed. The piece was constructed of plastic bags, yarn, and random other pieces, like the green straw seen below.

The other instillation in the gallery was based on weather patterns and the difference between weather and climates.

Alanna’s work consisted mostly of fiber art. This fit in nicely with this weeks yarn bombing activity. The two works I’m showing off here consisted of a sheer fabric draped over wooden frames. Alanna then filled these frames with other fiber based pieces, from string to a cloth rose, and other fabrics.

Alanna said that her background was more in sculpture and painting and I can definitely see that come through in these pieces. She creates these sculpture out of fabrics within the frames. She also had this set of smaller painted paintings that incorporated some fiber art.

This was my favorite piece. On the left was a dark frame and on the right was a mostly white frame. Alanna talked about the juxtaposition of black and white and how without one you can’t appreciate the other. I liked how the fabric flowed out of the frame and wrapped around the legs of the base.

Yireh’s says her work, titled Harmony & Discordance: Conflicting Landscapes, is inspired by what she sees around her every day. The choice of title is evident when viewing the gallery. There is a clear juxtaposition of beautiful green landscapes and harsh industrialized cityscapes of pipes and blocky brown buildings. This juxtaposition is also seen in the type of painting she does. While the first two paintings are oil on canvas, while the other pieces below are painted on paper. Kwak says that painting on paper is a way to release the stress built up from oil on canvas.

I can feel the pressure release from my shoulders.

This release of tension is evident in these style of these paintings. While painting these, she needs not pay attention to detail or the form of the objects she is try to mimic. Instead she can let the painting assume a style during the process, without the need for predetermination. I see similarities to this juxtaposition in my own life. I often approach things in a very structured manner, but often relax my inhibitions and allow myself to think and act more naturally. I enjoyed talking with Yireh about her process and appreciatedthe ensuing self-reflection.

“Such an everyday object that has been so important throughout history.” – Shelley, discussing his medium, glass bottles

When I talked with Mac, he pointed out some interesting things that I would never have noticed. First off he led me over to one of his pieces and asked if I saw anything different about it. I took a while to look it over and offered a few guesses, then he pointed out a small white rectangle on the surface and asked, “what do you think that is.” I had no idea. I turned out to be a label from a coke bottle. He described how awesome it was that in all of the randomness and chaos of his process, that one of the few pieces with a label on it happened to find its way to the outer surface to be seen in the final product.

“It’s intriguing to think about the story of each individual piece.”

There were a few pieces very similar to this one, maybe even cut from the same source. What I found puzzling about these pieces is the dark green, almost black, glass that is oozing from the cracks. I didn’t get a chance to ask Maccabee about it, but I can only assume that these areas were not completely cooled when this section was cut. To me this occurrence is interesting as it would seem impossible to manufacture this willfully. How would one monitor the internal temperature of a solid piece of glass? What made these sections different from the surrounding glass? These are the questions that kept me staring into this amalgamation, pondering the process that led to its unique features.

This is another piece that was quite unique. I seemed to mimic, in its colors and form, a slab of cracked ice. The shards of glass looked like pieces of a broken up sheet of ice.

Maccabee finished of our talk by saying that CSULB is “probably the most exciting place on the west coast for ceramics.” After seeing his amazing work, I would definitely agree.